Time Machine Required

28 November 2012 01:35

The law can take some time to move and delays can impact on business decisions.

Ibrox chief executive Charles Green has complained again about the delay in announcing the verdict of the First Tier Tax Tribunal which considered the use of the Employee Benefit Trusts (EBT) scheme. HMRC considered the payments as taxable while the tribunal ruled that the payments were loans that could be repaid. There is no tax due on loans. The weight of the tax case hanging over the club had a significant impact on the value and reputation of the club. Rangers are currently playing in the Scottish Third Division after the oldco was liquidated. Green contends a number of detrimental things could have been avoided. He said: "The thing that turned many people against Rangers, quite wrongly in my opinion, was the spectre of EBTs. To have that case awarded in favour of Murray Group has been a substantial step. I think the question is when something was tried in January why did it take 11 months to get an opinion out there? If a CVA had gone through we would still be playing in the SPL and perhaps even be playing in Europe. We said from day one that the CVA was our preferred route. It does get you really annoyed to think that all of this hate and all the problems that the fans have had to endure were for no real reason. For me as CEO of Rangers I have to focus on the future and not on the past. We have said in our presentations that we will do what we said we would do - get promotion and work our way to the top division - whatever that top division is called."Would Green ever need to have become involved if the EBT decsison was made public way back then? Would Craig Whyte have held back payments due to HMRC if he knew that the EBT scheme was not going to cost the club £47m. Somethings we will never know.